UNIC offers Vogue Italia proof of leather’s sustainable future
Anyone searching for an example of circular-economy thinking working in real life need look no further than the leather industry. This was the clear message that the director general of national Italian tanning industry association, UNIC, Fulvia Bacchi, delivered in an interview with Vogue Italia at the start of 2021.
Ms Bacchi told the magazine: “We are a successful example of the circular economy. We recover a by-product that is 100% natural and that would, otherwise, go to waste.” She said this was an objective, “mathematical proof” that the leather industry has a sustainable future.
She told Vogue Italia that Italy’s new Leather Law is fair because it will prevent manufacturers and users of synthetic alternatives from misusing the term ‘leather’.
Ms Bacchi said that describing these alternatives as environmentally friendly was, often, a mistake because many derive from fossil fuels or use synthetic polymers to bind plant-based fibres together.
She added: “These materials have the right to exist, but they do not have the right to denigrate us by accusing us of being unsustainable. We are an important part of the Italian economy and we are suffering considerable damage from competitors who are misappropriating the term that defines us, leather.”
